gunnarthor

FLR's your man. Right after Katrina, I kicked around buying it but I didn't. Wish I had. Nice dividend.

True, only Berrios has high upside but wasting Dozier isn't the way to fix it either. Brock Stewart slips right into the back of our rotation, for instance. (And most agree he wasn't offered with De Leon). So it doesn't look like - at this time - the Dozier trade wasn't going to move the needle much on the rotation. So you don't do it. The Twins do need better pitchers at the ML level. They have a handful of ranked prospects in AA/AAA right now. They have three picks in the top 37 (I think) in a college deep draft, and they can trade guys like Dozier or Santana. The Santana rumor mill is pretty empty and the best deal we've seen for Dozier hasn't been enough for most people. So that's what's left.

How you feel about De Leon is going to greatly alter your view. I was never very high on him b/c of his shoulder soreness. Klaw's ranking him in the 70s seems to reflect that as did fangraphs (and others) noting he was not their top pitching prospect. However, if you think De Leon is a difference maker, you look at this differently.

But it's not. We've already removed 46 starts from that group (Nolasco, Dean, Albers, Meyer, Milone) and hopefully another 26 with Duffey into the pen. If nothing else happens, at a minimum we'll get at least 25-40% new starts. I agree that Santana won't be as good but last year he and Gibson combined for 55 starts and 4.4 WAR. I think, even with regression, they can be a bit better. Berrios is the big one, of course. If he's pitching like last year, we're ****ed. But if turns into even a 2 WAR player, that's a huge swing. The point is, we don't have to take a deal we don't like to improve the rotation.

The Twins can do several things to improve the pitching without wasting their best trade chip. Even doing nothing, they can't expect positive regression. They can improve pitching by getting a pitch framing catcher (if you think that's a thing). They can improve pitching by improving the defense - esp the OF defense. I think they've done some of these. Obviously, if pitch framing is a thing, Castro is supposed to be good at it. An OF of Rosario/Buxton/Kepler should be an upgrade over last year, provided they hit and stay in the lineup. I'm not sold on the IF defense and, outside of Buxton, they don't have anyone who should be much more than average at best. But it's still an upgrade. If you don't want to role with Santana, Gibson, Santiago, May, Berrios (my guess for opening day), you can sign a FA starter like Hammel, who would probably be as effective as the "and junk" part of any De Leon trade. What "similar deals?" If you're talking about Dozier trades, again, I think you try and look at trades either of similar players or similar expected value. Ben Zorbrist was traded by Oakland to KC for half a season. KC received a pitcher in Manaea, who is pretty close to De Leon now, and a relief pitcher/occasional starter. The Royals were probably expecting maybe 1.5-2 WAR from Zobrist in that half season (optimistically) + bonus for making them a playoff team/WS contender. Dozier's expected value to the Dodgers - 8 WAR - is four times that of Zobrist's expected value to the Royals. So his return should be more than a top 50 prospect and a AAAA player. And so on

What's the first part? Do we ever trade Dozier? Not unless we get a deal we value.

"Thoroughly debunked" is not the same as "Levi doesn't agree." If you want to find out Dozier's worth, you look at similar trades, and compare the value a team traded away along with its position and length of control and see what the return was. That's why we know Dozier's value is much higher than De Leon and junk.

Quick version, last year was the only surprise year for me. I correctly thought the 2015 Twins would be a winning team (and it was so nice of the people who disagreed to constantly use base runs all season to argue the season didn't matter). I think, generally, the trades that were made were mostly fair. I thought the Twins should have gotten a second piece with Span (at the time, I thought it should have been Sammy Solis, who was coming off TJ surgery and was rated in the 15-20 range on Nat prospect lists). I liked the return on the Revere trade more even though I thought Meyer was the best piece. Injuries happen and prospects don't always pan out but the Twins farm system did a great job of growing and, I think, Brad Steil deserve credit for a lot of it. While Buxton was supposed to be a stud, the Twins got some nice prospects out of later round picks and low level international signings that really took off after Steil. The farm system isn't good just b/c of high draft position (although that helped). My two biggest problems with the rebuild - and I don't know where the blame goes or even if blame goes anywhere - is that, with the exception of Sano and Arcia, nearly every young hitter has had a real hard time adjusting to ML pitching. I'm not sure if they were brought up too soon or if it's the natural difficulty of the AAA to majors jump but it does seem like our hitters are caught by surprise by *something* at the ML level. Now, maybe this happens everywhere but Hicks' constant struggles bugged me. The other problem is that something ain't right with our ML veteran pitchers. Yes, having guys like Nolasco and Milone and Santiago and Worley sucks but they all under-performed, even by their standards. And they did this through different managers and pitching coaches. Was it pitch framing? Horrible defense? The cement drying? I have no idea but even in 2015, you could see the cracks. And I'm honestly not sure if the Ryan regime understood that or just thought it was bad luck. I do hope Falvey looks at this institutional failure more. Surprisingly, I think the rookie pitchers played more like they were expected to. As to FA, I generally don't think we should sign a big FA until you're ready to win. I thought, after 2015, the Twins could have added a FA SP but they also had a bunch of young arms that could be blocked. In retrospect, they should have done something there. (But that also brings into play the Pohlad checkbood, which isn't always reliable).

Yes, everyone who disagrees with your view of the trade thinks the Twins are going to use 'magic'. You have yet to find a comparable trade to Dozier (in your view). You have yet to even find one but you keep coming back to this myth that De Leon was close to Dozier's trade value. It's kind of insulting how much you refuse to listen to other people - and, frankly, insult other people. You've made no attempt to understand other people's views and you continually misinterpret them to make points that don't fit. To summarize, based on trades made in the last few years, a team that trades off a package comparable to Dozier should expect to receive two top 100 prospects + a couple lottery ticket pieces. The Twins made the right decision to not trade Dozier yet you have continuously labeled the Twins as making decisions based out of fear. It gets annoying. Your song has been played.

Molitor terrifies me. The pitching I can see ways around. Berrios gets good, Santana continues to be a solid ML pitcher that he's been for 10 years, Gibson pitches like 2014-2015 Gibson, Santiago pitches more like he did after he stopped listening to our coaching staff, May gets a real shot in the rotation, Hughes arm is fixed, Mejia is a solid back-end lefty, one of our AA arms breaks out for a quick promotion, one of our journeymen signings works out, we sign Hammel etc. Pitch framing is a real thing that improves the staff, the defense isn't the disaster it was last year, esp in the OF, and just natural positive regression. Not all of those things will happen but some will. But you can see where the staff might not be the disaster it was last year esp if they don't give those starts to Duffey and Albers et al. But Molitor? Man. He didn't seem to know what role to put players in, he didn't seem to be a player's manager at all, I think the players hated playing for him. I don't think he's particularly good for young guys who are struggling, for all the bitching about Gardy, Molitor used the media to attack players a lot more, he didn't stick up for his players early in the season, Sano's showboating seems to irritate him but he's ok with Rosario's showboating. I think Molitor can really **** this team up. And the fact that the FO put their own coach in the dugout suggests, to me, that they agree.

Well, I think after the 2012 season is probably when they honestly started rebuilding. The 2011 team was decimated by injuries but a lot of the core of the 2010 team was still there. You had Mauer in his prime, Morneau was supposed to be fine after 1.5 off from concussions, Hammer could replace Cuddy and Span and Revere were good young OFers. Liriano can't be as bad again. Let's see what happens if everyone's healthy. And it didn't work and Ryan started trading off all the vets. As for what we should expect, I think it's basically in place now. The offensive core is there and the Twins will start winning when the young guys get good. I would guess that they'll be in the 75 win range this year and make a big improvement next year. The bullpen is crap and I sure hope the FO does something about it but Berrios should be what everyone was hoping De Leon would be. Santana, Gibson and Santiago are experienced vets who shouldn't be as bad (as a group). May might be put back in the rotation and Duffey taken out. And Molitor has a coach in the dug out to make sure he doesn't **** up as much.

Well, I agree that the Twins need pitching but what they need is ace pitching. They just graduated Berrios who was a top pitching prospect who is probably a 2/3 at best. And the Twins will have in AA or AAA four pitchers who have been top 100 prospects on some list (Gonsalves, Mejia, Stewart and Jay). So they do have high level pitching prospects. But all of those guy project as #3 or less and are on the list for high floors or solid command/control or 'know how to pitch.' They don't have another Berrios in the system and they don't have a Bundy/Gioltio type at all. If Dozier can get us one of those, great. But De Leon wasn't one of those. And before someone says look at this ranking or that, most rankings that have him high have it because his proximity to the majors + a belief in a strong floor. Almost no one puts his stuff on the level of a Gioltio or Harvey et al.

Well, we disagree on the trade comps, fine. I do think you need to find a trade that you think sets Dozier's value. You might say Dozier and Forsythe are equal therefore that's his value (I would disagree, of course). But I'm pretty much in the camp that the Twins didn't trade Dozier out of fear. They kept him because they weren't acting afraid. What you are suggesting is actually doing something out of fear. And I think pretty much everyone agrees that De Leon would be a bad return for Dozier. Those who disagree with you don't think anything remotely close to Dozier's value was ever on the table - I continue to believe it was basically just De Leon and junk but it might have been just De Leon. As for Perkins, had he pitched better in Sept 2015, we might have made the playoffs so I'm 'meh' on not trading him. I was for it before he signed the extension but understood why and was ok with keeping him. He was pitching in important games for us.

OK. So we haven't started the rebuild. Got it. What should we have done specifically?

Kind of off topic but what do you think should have been done at the end of the 2013 season that wasn't? I get it, you'd fire Ryan after two years on the job and Gardy. Fine, then what? Trade Perkins, I imagine. Maybe capitalize on Dozier since he's not likely to be a 3.5 WAR player again. And you have the 5th pick in the draft. You have about an 85m payroll. Ownership might let you spend another 20. But it was a weak FA class - http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014-mlb-free-agent-tracker Nolasco/Jiminez/Garza all signed the same 4/50 deal and were tied for second on the SP salary. With the benefit of hindsight, what do you do?

Hicks, Arcia, Buxton, Rosario, Florimon, Sano, Berrios, Polanco, Dozier, Plouffe, etc were all allowed to play - arguably too soon. I agree that Molitor isn't a great manager and his bungling of Meyer, Arcia and Polanco (and a lesser extent Kepler and May) are the primary reasons. But Correia and Pelfrey weren't blocking anyone. We traded nearly everyone that wasn't nailed down with a handful of exceptions - Hammer being one, but again, he also didn't have much trade value. The only legit trade chip we held onto was Perkins and, unless he is traded, Dozier. We didn't keep Plouffe for a rebuilding year.

What I've been suggesting is that to view Dozier's expected return in the trade is to look at offers that are comparable to Dozier, not look at returns and hope Dozier fits. That's why I've mentioned several different trades that I think show Dozier's value. We can now add the Forsythe deal to that list. Whether or not a better deal is in the future is irrelevant to what his value is now. If you're moving him because you're afraid his value and his return (two different things) will drop, you end up taking bad returns now.

We should trade them now for a group of prospects that will debut at the same time.

I honestly can't get my head around that line of thinking. It's basically "ignore the draft because everyone gets to draft", "ignore the trading of mediocre players because they don't matter", "ignore trading Span because Meyer didn't pan out", and just goes to "Why didn't the Twins spend money to flip vets at the deadline or why didn't the Twins spend tens of millions more on the international market".

Well, they were in the playoffs at the time ...

Upton was moved a second time for a package that included Max Fried who was a top 10ish pitching prospect (although he might have been injured at the time). But I think you're looking at it the wrong way. You don't usually see 8+ WAR of talent going one way in a trade. The handful of trades that did involve top 10ish pitching prosects didn't really care if they were traded for hitters or pitchers. They were traded for talent. Which is why it's more important to look at the value being traded and go from there. There are only a handful of trades in the last half-decade that I think a team traded away a (realistic) 8+ WAR value player. And those returns were very heavy. Certainly above De Leon and Stewart, for example. You should be looking at talent of Dozier's magnitude and seeing what it got back and base a return on that.

Four losing seasons in a row, 5 losing seasons in six years, those are pretty typical part of the rebuild process. Chicago and Houston didn't speed out of it, they just entered it earlier. Most teams have those periods, especially if they can't spend their way out of it.

Well the Dow hit 20000 today. I'm sure Trump will tweet to take credit for that.

Yeah, the list isn't perfect but the return the Phillies got for Giles was insane. That's the return I want for Dozier. Massively off topic but have you seen the amount of talent the Astros have given up over the last few years, either in trades or simply letting them walk?

So just looking at mlbpipeline list of top pitchers over the years (they divide by handiness), a few have been traded (and I certainly missed some trades) although not necessarily in the years they were ranked (that's just too much work) Shelby Miller (dumb Arizona trade), Jacob Turner, Tyler Skaggs, Andrew Heaney (Dee Gordon trade), Taijon Walker, Mark Appel (for Giles), Trevor Bauer, Giolito, Max Fried, Sean Newcomb (Simmons trade), Sean Manaea (Zorbrist trade), De Leon (Forsythe), Kopech, Lopez. I'm not sure it tells us much. Levi and Mike have made the point that top 10ish pitchers aren't often traded for hitters but that's not quite true. They aren't often traded at all. The bolded ones were traded for hitters. Most trades involved multiple pieces. There just aren't that many trades of a guy like Dozier by himself.